Recovery Partition - factory or current OS?

New TM 2420, tech-challenged user. Can't seem to find any info on this in the forums (perhaps because my ? is so dumb?).
Made the 'recovery' CD's at initial boot, so could I use the D: Recovery Partition to backup what is now my slightly modified XP and my data? (don't want to break anything).
Thanks.

 

There is an option to backup the current OS in the eRecovery. Be very careful as it (the current OS backup) does not always work. However, the default OS backup from the PQSERVICE partition will always work, strange?

 

The seperate partition is not another HD, so if your drive does fail you still lose your data - Since you made your recovery CDs I would blow away that partition and merge into one using persay Partition magic, if you choose not to I would tell to at least convert it over to NTFS, since it is a faster, more stable File system
To convert, Click on Start>run>cmd (press enter)> convert D: /fs:ntfs

Wipe out the recovery data if you choose for more space since you have CD backups, and if worst comes to worst, you can always take a OEM XP cd and install from it IF you need to (if both fail) -

Its really crappy how Manfs. do things now of days isn't it?

 

As I posted in another thread, it doesn't hurt anything to have a large hard drive split into more than one partition. In some ways, it may even be an advantage. I would just leave it, and start using it when you decide you need to. For example, you could keep your digital photos on it. Or you could save downloaded software on it, etc. You might want to convert it to the NTFS format, though. But it's still the same hard drive, so if your hard drive should fail, having backups on a second partition won't help you much. As far as the little recovery partition goes, who cares? Just leave it for future recovery in case you need it. It's so small that the space it uses in insignificant compared to the rest of your hard drive. Why mess with it? It's really handy to have. You can easily recover a completely new, factory fresh installation from that.

 

You can also do it from a OEM xp CD, not have to uninstall anything, not have to deal with defragmenting two partitions, I have seen more drives fail with multiple partitions than I have without... you say having two partitions has its advantages, but you dont explain how or why. Also if you use the recovery cd /dvd it recreates all your partitions all over again anyways if you choose to. I have seen significant differences from obtaining laptop with two partitions (one being fat32 like normal) compared to blowing it away and going with one and OEM xp - all the pre-installed software bloats windows, services, the registry, and uninstalling does not remove everything - The average PC user should not have to deal with this out of the box - but to each his own -

 

Thanks for the replies folks. Lots to think about...